Tag Archives: Preval

Apr 6 2012

Martelly in Miami: A Surgery Of Controversy

President Martelly of Haiti

According to an official statement issued by the Office of the President in Port-au-Prince, President Martelly left Haiti Wednesday to Miami, Fl where he will undergo a surgical intervention in his right shoulder. No mention of the nature and scope of the surgery is made. He will return a week later, precisely on Thursday, April 12, 2012 to resume his activities.

Apparently, the fact that he is traveling abroad for medical reasons does not please many. Some are arguing that he should not be traveling to the US to be operated on; he should stay home and be treated by Haitian doctors and nurses only for the sake of inspiring confidence in the Haitian health care system. Are these people serious, really?

Of course, that is what every president would hope to see. But such is not the case for Haiti. And who said he will not be operated on by a Haitian orthopedist in Miami -one of our own who had studied in Haiti and left the country for political reasons or because he or she was not valued enough in his or her own country?

This argument, which I consider as a blame on the president’s account, would have made sense had Martelly been president for the past 26 years and nothing been done to structure our health care system and the delivery of care in the country.

Remember, Martelly has been in power for only 11 months; it took years to bring our health care system and the practice of the science of medicine to such a situation of chaos.

His predecessors are done messing up everything, now they want to hold him accountable for the state of affairs in the country. At some point in time, the practice of medicine in Haiti used to be one of the best in the region; it is not so anymore for years.

Aristide and Preval, these two Lavalas guys, for the twenty years they were in power, did not do anything of substance to make sure that their successors would not have to travel abroad should they need care as basic as emergency. They messed it up for all of us. So if blames need to be cast, they need to direct them at these two guys, not Martelly. In fact, did Rene Preval not have to travel abroad, to Cuba precisely, to have his prostate cancer taken care of? I did not hear all these chatters when that happened. Why now I am reading about all these jabbers? I guess Cuba is not foreign to Haiti, America is. Seriously, these healthcare nationalists need to find better ways to show their nationalism.

Aug 4 2011

THE ERA OF LAVALAS IS OVER

Only in Haiti could a guy like MOISE JEAN-CHARLES, the Senator from the Northern District of the country, someone who can barely read and write his name, find himself in a position where he could humiliate a highly educated and qualified man (with a doctorate degree in law and years of leadership experience) in the caliber of BERNARD H. GOUSSE, who was chosen by PRESIDENT MARTELLY to lead the country’s government. Unfortunately, he got voted down in the Senate by the 16 LAVALAS senators.

Thanks to ARISTIDE and PREVAL, the fathers of the LAVALAS philosophy, such a character could be in the Senate -the respectable chamber of the wises -to legislate in a country as ill and desperate as Haiti, where values such as integrity, honesty, professionalism and savoir-faire should be praised and honored. That’s what “change” as envisioned and promoted by LAVALAS means.

We Haitians would be really dumb and stupid to bring these LAVALAS guys back in power again, seriously. In all earnest, we should be having billboards all over the country that read in bold and capital letters “THE ERA OF LAVALAS IS OVER!”

After 25 years, no one can keep blaming DUVALIER for the quagmire LAVALAS -with Aristide and Preval -has plunged the country in. We had voted these guys in power with hopes they would come and do better than DUVALIER; unfortunately, they failed the country miserably. They brought us institutionalized corruption, organized crimes (chimères, kidnapping, rape, etc…) and lawlessness. That was, indeed, an avalanche the country had experienced; it left behind a chaotic state, and it will take us decades to bring it back to its state of normalcy.

Obviously, after the collapse of the DUVALIER regime, we, as a people, have proven our incapacity to do better. That’s why for the past 20 years, we had 4 terms of LAVALAS. In other words, we had voted in power nothing but these guys to literally emulate the system of corruption and organized and systematic violence they had been criticizing the Duvalierists for. I guess we could not do any better.

LAVALAS -the political movement said embedded in the philosophy of Justice, Transparency and Participation, which most of us stood for and strongly supported in 1990 (the year that witnessed the emergence of ARISTIDE to power in Haiti), sadly, had been substituted with ignorance, stupidity and mediocrity.

This time, my fellow Haitians, let us challenge ourselves by showing to the international community watching us that we can do better by yelling loud and clear at the top of our lungs “THE ERA OF LAVALAS IS OVER!”

We will not and must not forget. So for the record, here are the names of the 16 LAVALAS senators who rejected in the Senate the choice of BERNARD H. GOUSSE for prime minister:

01- Exius Piierre francky (South)
02- Sainvil Francois Lucas (Northwest)
03- Privert Jocelerme (Nippes)
04- Lebon Fritz Carlos (South)
05- Lambert Joseph (Southeast)
06- Lambert Wenceslass (Southeast)
07- John Joseph Joel (West)
08- Bastien Kelly C (North)
09- Cassy Nenel (Nippes)
10- Pierre Louis Derex Lucien (Northeast)
11- Bien Aime Jean Baptiste (Northeast)
12- Moise Jean Charles (North)
13- Wesner Polycarpe (North)
14- Buissereth Yvon (South)
15- Desras Simon Dieuseul (Central)
16- Beauplan Evalliere (Northwest)

For the record, the following is the integral text of GOUSSE’s reaction after he lost the bet of becoming the country’s Prime Minister:

PROMESSES D’AVENIR

Haïti: Chers Amis Compatriotes,

Le Sénat a pris une décision qui met malheureusement fin au cheminement qui devait me permettre de me mettre au service de mon pays. Malheureusement … mais momentanément.

Ma désignation a soulevé un débat public salutaire où les forces saines de la population se sont exprimées en faveur du bien, de la vie, de l’éducation, contre le mal absolu incarné dans une barbarie s’étant abattue éhontément sur les bébés, les femmes âgées, les petites marchandes et les ouvriers.

Je remercie Monsieur le Président de la République, Michel J. Martelly, d’avoir désiré m’associer à l’oeuvre de son mandat populaire.

Je remercie les parents et amis qui n’ont jamais fléchi dans leur support. Je remercie surtout les anonymes rencontrés dans les rues, sur les places, qui, discrètement mais chaleureusement, m’ont encouragé dans un combat qui était devenu le leur.

Je remercie aussi mes compatriotes sénateurs du groupe des 16 pour la publicité faite autour de mon nom avec un zèle quotidien dont n’aurait pu faire preuve la meilleure agence de publicité. J’ai pu grâce à eux me prouver à moi-même et démontrer à mes compatriotes mon endurance à garder le font haut et la tête altière, le regard porté vers un destin collectif de grandeur, indifférent aux crachats et aux vulgaires piaillements. Je ne manquerai donc pas de leur faire parvenir leurs honoraires s’ils me soumettent une facture pour un travail décidément bien fait.

Le débat parlementaire du 2 août 2011 a permis que des sénateurs désintéressés défendissent le droit et les valeurs morales avec une opiniâtreté, un panache et une éloquence pour lesquels je les félicite. Ils n’ont pas été vaincus et ont, j’espère, suscité des vocations de parlementaires valeureux, nourris de courage et de science. La défaite fut celle, éphémère, du droit, et celle, peut-être définitive, de l’honneur du Sénat, alors que languissent sous les tentes et dans les masures, dans les écoles comme dans les conseils d’administration, dans une patience de plus en plus ténue, les espoirs déçus d’une Haïti studieuse, travailleuse et reconstruite.

Le combat dans lequel je suis engagé dépasse désormais ma personne ; je ne peux l’abandonner. L’horizon de ce combat ne s’arrête pas à la question de premier ministre. Le temps est venu pour que la dignité, le travail honnête et l’éducation soient les valeurs proposées en exemple et récompensées, pour que soient vaincues l’immoralité, la corruption, les richesses spontanées et l’arrogante ignorance.

La vie publique bien conçue, en dépit de ses vicissitudes, mérite que l’on s’y consacre quand la guident l’accès généralisé aux services sociaux de base, la modernisation de l’Etat, la libération des énergies créatrices et surtout le regain de la dignité nationale.

Je resterai donc parmi vous
Au revoir

GPR, Gousse Pi Rèd.

Jul 11 2011

THE HAITIAN LEGISLATURE: A CASE STUDY FOR ALL POLITICAL JUNKIES

I understand democracy can be hard, but it is poised to get harder when you have people in political positions with no clue whatsoever of how democracy works and what it means to be public servant.

As we speak, we have a serious crisis in Haiti, and it has nothing to do with our democratic experience; rather, it has to do with the people we have in our political institutions, especially the legislature, to represent us. So solving this crisis requires that we take bolt and unpopular measures.

I strongly believe we need to find a way to get rid of this legislature we currently have in Haiti and start over with a new and functional body –if we really aspire to a new and better Haiti.

This Congress, it is sad to say, is bringing nothing but shame and deception to the land of Dessalines, Toussaint, Christophe and Petion. So, by any means necessary, democratic or otherwise, we need to retire it urgently before it is too late. Retiring this Congress is just as urgent as unclogging a clogged artery so that the tissues of a specific organ it is there to irrigate can be perfused before the undesirable occurs.

These two chambers of the legislative branch of our government are instruments put in place by ARISTIDE and PREVAL to destroy the country. They are saturated with their vassals -criminals, drug dealers, thieves, crooks, ignorant and unqualified heads, etc. Their only qualification to accede to these respectable chambers was to pledge allegiance to their bosses, ARISTIDE and PREVAL, not to the republic and the people that elected them.

So basically, These two LAVALAS guys, ARISTIDE and PREVAL, during their twenty years in power, have done to the country the same thing they had been blaming the Duvaliers for, which is vasalizing all the institutions. That’s why they do not have the moral authority and political leverage to take legal actions against Jean Claude Duvalier curently living peacefully in his country. To prosecute Duvalier is to prosecute the two of them.

Institutions are made of people, and they are the reflection of the people inside them. A better way to look at it is like this: Tell me who you have to body your institutions, I will tell you how effective and functional they are.

Some of these people in our legislature can barely read, let alone comprehending the wording of and logic embedded in the articles of the Constitution, how can you expect them to legislate in total knowledge of the law? Haitians, seriously, are these folks the best you have to offer? Where are the highly qualified and honest Haitians? How did we end up with these guys as our representatives?

Well, I don’t know. Maybe I am expecting too much from a group of people for whom the mess seems to be working and to whom the filth seems to be beneficial.

It is not my fault that I am holding these guys to such higher standards; it is that the little bit I know in politics, I have acquired that in the United States. In other words, the only model I have of how government institutions work and are structured and staffed, I have obtained that in the country where everything seems to be working for its people, and that is the United States of America.

The lesson all political junkies like myself have to learn from observing the Haitian legislature is this: When you have crooks, thieves, drug dealers and politically illiterate folks in your political institutions, you have the Haitian model, you have what is happening now in Haiti -a case study of a politically, economically and socially dead country due to its lifeless institutions.

Dec 9 2010

THE PREVAL ADMINISTRATION MUST BE INVESTIGATED

Rene G. Preval, president of Haiti

Accountability is the essence of good governance. When after the earthquake many so-called leaders in the likes of Tunebe Delpe were seizing the headlines in their misleading efforts of satisfying their selfish agendas, I was amongst the many people who had called them out. They were acting in an irresponsible manner which could have further endangered the existence of the nation. They were putting the people on the streets of Port-au-Prince protesting and asking for the resignation of the democratically elected president and the reinstatement of Jean Bertrand Aristide, who is now living in exile in South Africa, as President. I then took an active and bold stand to warn the people to not be following these political opportunists, these political mercenaries. Mind you, these same guys had contributed to the political conjuncture that culminated to the ousting of Jean Bertrand Aristide through a brutal coup d’etat.

My opposition to that reckless proposition from these self-proclaimed leaders was based on a matter of democratic principle. We all know that President Preval, whether you are a friend or a foe, was elected by the people, meaning democratically through an election which, per many people’s conclusive accounts, reflected the people’s choice. So if he was elected, and the choice was made in compliance with the prescriptions outlined in the Constitution; if he were to be disposed of his mandate, should that not be materialized by following the guidelines of the Constitution? I do think so.

 President Preval did not cause the earthquake that took the lives of 300,000 of our brothers and sisters and caused over one million to be living in tents. However, his management of the aftermath, his politics of nonchalance and mutism further aggravated the already chaotic situation. For about a week following the tragedy, the leadership of the country was totally inexistent; it was nowhere to be found, and the people were dying of desperation hoping to receive some directives from the president they elected to lead the nation in times of peace, war and distress. There was a vacuum of leadership, and it was very well exploited by some people from the international community, which once again had put the sovereignty of the nation in danger. The people, in the middle of the raging sea, were left to swim their way out –the exemplification of the “degaje w pou w soti” philosophy of President Preval.

We already know what Mr. Preval’s plan is, and we are actually witnessing it in the making. As I mentioned in many instances, his plan is to manipulate the election in his favor -to hand the continuity of the nation to his protégé, JUDE CELESTIN. That is why you see the Provisory Electoral Council (PEC) is saturated with nothing but his cronies. Mind you, this institution, the Provisory Electoral Council (a constitutional recommendation), is to be apolitical and nonpartisan with the mandate of organizing credible and honest elections in the country. Its members were handpicked by President Preval; they have no sense of credibility to get the people to have faith in the electoral process.

Now, once again, following the results of the FRAUDULENT November 28 elections published Tuesday night, the country is on the verge of a political crisis. Preval and the PEC, in their game of manipulation of the elections, were caught in the act of stealing the vote, causing the people to go on a rampage destroying and burning anything that comes to their minds –anything we have still standing after the disastrous earthquake. The sovereignty of the country, once again, is in great danger because of the sense of irresponsibility of our leaders.

I am not a constitutional lawyer; therefore, I am not quite aware of the dictate of the Constitution in terms of how to address Mr. Preval’s case. However, I do not think one needs to be a lawyer to know that this government has failed the people in many, many instances. So President Preval’s term is soon to be over, explaining the reason why we are now having this presidential election. I am calling on the lawyers –foreign and national -standing with the people of Haiti to investigate the government’s management of the January the 12th tragedy, its involvement in these fraudulent November 28 elections, and take necessary LEGAL actions to hold these people accountable.

These guys need to answer certain pertinent questions. We will never know the reasons behind the absence of the country’s leadership in the aftermath of the earthquake if we don’t take action to find out. We will never know the backroom deals that went down between Preval, the PEC and Celestin if we are not determined and resolute to find out.

The Preval administration needs to be investigated. What will come out of this legal action is unpredictable. However, if he and his acolytes are found guilty of the charges held against them, they need to face the legal repercussions. And we do not need exile for anyone of them. They need to be given a clean bill of service in the people’s court of law. When are we going to start holding our leaders accountable? If not now, when?

Dec 7 2010

PREVAL THINKS HE IS SLICK

Rene G. Preval, president of Haiti

The word out now in many political quarters in the Diaspora and inside the country is that PREVAL is succumbing to the intense pressures from the Haitian people and the international community to bypass his protégé, JUDE CELESTIN. He is now turning to both MARTELLY and MANIGAT for the next round. Though I do not have a political problem will such result, I still will not accept it.

It is a political trap, and I hope they (Manigat and Martelly) can be politically clever enough to see that. He will make sure he fills the legislative branch with none other than his cronies to prevent the next president from properly administering the country. Let’s face it… how effective can a president be when his/her hands are tied? If we sit and let the legislative branch be kidnapped by PREVAL and his cronies, it will be the same as having them in power.

When/if his party holds total control of both chambers of congress, the executive branch will be stalled, meaning nothing will get done in the country for the suffering and struggling majority. It will be business as usual. We cannot be walking on the same path of social and economic stagnancy as the one PREVAL had taken us for five long, disastrous and chaotic years. 

We need change in Haiti, not the perpetuation of the obsolete and ineffective status quo. So we still stand behind our firm position –we demand that the November 28 elections be annulled, and we will not bow down, not when we stand on principle. 

We need fair and honest elections in Haiti. At least, that’s what we the people of Haiti deserve. We are not going to let our vote be stolen from us by PREVAL, not this time. These masquerade elections need to be annulled. The only way to effectively deal with PREVAL beyond his term as president of the country is to make sure he is politically powerless, and we are working on that.  

PREVAL, you cannot outsmart us. I told you we already saw the cards in your hands. There is nothing you can possibly do. Did I not tell you that we got you exactly where we wanted you? When I said that the evening after the elections, I bit you did not believe me. You probably thought I was just blowing hot air. Bypassing CELESTIN to give us MANIGAT and MARTELLY to move on to the next round only to pacify us is not going to cut it.

Nov 19 2010

MANIGAT, MARTELLY, BAKER & LAGUERRE: WAKE UP!

The presidential election in Haiti is only days away, yet JUDE CELESTIN still matters. Something was not done right. I can tell you this much –it is because you guys (MANIGAT, MARTELLY, BAKER and LAGUERRE) did not play right. I would beat up all four of you for your complacencies. You failed to link him to the failed policies of the PREVAL administration.

The man in the White House, RENE PREVAL, said that CELESTIN is his man, what better evidence do you need to destroy or make him insignificant in the race? That’s exactly what you should have been wanting from him, and he delivered it to you “UPS delivery” at your doorsteps. How could you not use that to run an effective character assassination campaign against the man?

We democrats did it here in the US. How you think we literally annihilated McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign and gave Obama the election on a silver platter? We played three smart cards against him.

1. We linked him to the failed policies of the Bush administration –the baseless Iraq War, the recessive economy, the handling of Katrina in New Orleans, big tax cuts for big corporations and the top 2% Americans while neglecting the middle class, etc… 

2. We proved to the American electorate that he was out of touch with reality. On Monday, September 15, 2008, he hand-delivered to us the gift we had long been waiting for. On the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Florida, he declared: “the fundamentals of our economy are strong [despite] tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street.” Mind you, he made such statement right in the middle of the recession, at a time when the economy was bleeding jobs.

 

3. We transformed Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, his pick for vice president, into a laughing stock, a joke, someone not worthy to be taken seriously. By doing so, the McCain candidacy was viewed as a big joke. Her interview with CBS’s own Katie Couric did it for us.

 

We played the three cards so well strategically that before you know it, Senator McCain was already confined in history book. He was a done deal. We slashed him in the polls. So no one can tell me about the effectiveness of a character assassination campaign strategy, for I have seen it used many times in every single election (local and national) here in the United States.

I do not work for your campaigns, nor am I one of your cheerleaders. However, I want to place my country, Haiti, first. In this election, I do not have a fighting dog, which by now you should know. I do not know whom I am for. I do know, however, whom I am against. I am against PREVAL and his protégé JUDE CELESTIN.

Quit all the “kole mouda” with CELESTIN. The clock is ticking. You do not have that much time in front of you. It is time to proceed with PLAN B –CHARACTER ASSASSINATION. You guys need to run ASAP campaign ads on the radio and on TV telling the people that a vote for CELESTIN is a vote for the continuation of the PREVAL administration embodied in the policies that gave us -MINUSTAH, CHOLERA, LACK OF OVERSIGHT, CORRUPTION, MY PALACE COLLAPSED, etc…” Take my check to the bank and cash it. Trust me, it will not bounce.

Oct 7 2010

WYCLEF: A GOLDEN BULLET NOT TO BE WASTED

Some people could say, and rightly so, that I was too harsh on Wyclef when he had declared his candidacy for the presidency in Haiti. Yes, I was, and I had my personal reason for that. Most of us, and possibly including Wyclef, knew that he was not quite ready to lead the country at this very unique and unprecedented socio-political juncture in the country’s history. In spite of that, we had the same people -who were using Aristide as a political card for their own selfish political agendas only to turn their backs on him right in the middle of the raging sea, when the game got tough -on the forefront catapulting Wyclef again as a political card. I and many others said not this time.

Wyclef is a VALUABLE ammunition which we cannot afford seeing wasted. I was fiercely opposing the idea of having him then running for the presidency. In a sense, it was good sport for him to have tested the waters to have a sense of what he needs to prepare himself for the job. I had been writing extensively on the issue, and thank God it seems as though he has been listening, which is a great thing.

Wyclef has proven to us that he is a fighter, and he does not take defeat lightly. As a fighter on the battlefield, that’s what you do -you assess your defeats to find the causes, correct them, and engage the enemy again with a winning state of mind.

After his defeat by the PREVAL Provisory Electoral Council (PPEC), I wrote to advise him to start his campaign for 2015 the day of. That’s what you do as a politician who believes in a dream to transform the face of your country and the situation of your constituents. So Wyclef started his campaign for 2015 the day he got rejected by the PPEC.

In this election cycle, Wyclef was facing two uphill battles –the legal battle and the perception battle. So he is working on making sure that in 2015, if he will have to endure battles, they are not the ones he just got defeated in.

  1. He lost the legal battle because he could not prove that he was legally residing in the country for five consecutive years following the last presidential election as stated in the Constitution of the land. This is an easy fix. All he has to do is to be in compliance with the law by maintaining his residency in Haiti. He needs to get his lawyer’s counsel on how to go by doing that.
  2. We all know that in politics, whether you want to admit it or not, perception is reality. So on the perception front, he was being hammered left and right by the people who did not think he was educated enough, who did not think he met the intellectual profile of someone worthy to be considered as president. This could be a little toughy, for it is not really easy to change people’s perceptions of you. But he is working on that. The last report I have come in contact with confirmed that he is looking forward to attending Brown University, one of the best institutions of higher learning in the United States. On Tuesday, October 5, 2010, he twitted:   “I Had a great day Yesterday [at] BRown University and look forward to being a Great student and learn as much as I can to take back home.”  
  3. When he was complaining on Facebook about nothing being done to remove the rubbles after nine months of the earthquake, in my blog on Facebook, I wrote “Wyclef: Let Me Holler at You” and slammed him (http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=907295022&notes_tab=app_2347471856#!/note.php?note_id=441370712272). My argument was that as a leader, when you see something needs to be done, and you have the means to mobilize and motivate the people and get them to make it happen, you act on it; you don’t complain about things not being done. He is doing exactly that, according to Le Nouvelliste of Tuesday, October 05, 2010 (http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=84221&PubDate=2010-10-05). He has been very active with his organization Yele creating jobs and giving his people on the ground a chance to live better days in a society where desperateness and hopelessness are sapping the inner lives of the people.    

The therapeutic way to cure one’s fear is to have him/her face it, not running away from it. I remember vividly just like it was yesterday that when I was a little boy growing up in Gonaives, Haiti, I was so afraid of “lamayot” that one day I came across one and literally defecated on me. My mother, who found out about the accident, felt embarrassed and decided to do something about it. One Sunday afternoon, she, who did not have any clinical psychology experience to know what she was doing, brought the “lamayot” in the house and had me face, touch and talk to him. And that was the end of my fear of “lamayots” until today. I say all this to say one thing: I want Wyclef to be back PREPARED in 2015 to face and overcome the challenge.

Wyclef is a golden bullet my generation has in its political arsenal which we cannot afford to see going into waste at this early stage in his political career. I do not know what the future has in the bank for him, but I want you to keep eyes on him. He will be back roaring stronger and louder than ever before.